115 Chapter 115 (1/2)

Xing Deng gritted his teeth while looking at the smirking Zhang Clan member in front of him, it would be easy to wipe these ten fools out, but what would happen after that. The mention of the core formation expert that they had in town was a strong enough deterrent for even this overbearing clan of mobsters. The Xing Patriarch calmed himself down, then leaned back in his chair to ask more questions.

\”What do you mean with this? How much spirit stones do you want?, it's my son we are talking about, won't the Zhang Clan give me some face and forget about the whole thing?\”

The Zhang Clan elder looked to the sides, knowing well that if a fight broke out they would be at a disadvantage. He wasn't planning on just barging in and taking the boy by force, he would ask nicely first. If they couldn't come to an agreement he would just retreat and ask for Zhang Zhi to make an appearance, or more foundation establishment warriors to make a difference.

\”I don't think you understand, this is an order coming straight from our own Patriarch. You will have an opportunity to defend your son, if he is deemed innocent than he will go free, if not he will be sentenced.\”

\”Sentence? Opportunity to defend? What do you mean, explain.\”

Xing Deng had no idea what this man was babbling about, no one really bothered with taking time in sentencing other people. If they were strong or had some backing then they would usually just pay up if they offended someone equally strong. If someone offended a stronger person with stronger backing they would be at their mercy and that was it. The cultivators at the top never cared much about the weak, they were far to busy with trying to reach that next realm.

The man started explaining, he had it memorized down by now. How it worked was that the person that was found doing some shady stuff would be apprehended, if someone witnessed the transgression they would be used as witnesses. The witness would testify under oath, or to be precise under a formation that forced them to tell the truth along with the one that was getting accused. This formation forced anyone to say the truth if the cultivator's resistance was too strong, they were other ways to weaken them so that the formation would work.

The Zhang family member didn't go into much detail about that part though, he mostly just mentioned that the Xing Clan Patriarch's son was caught assaulting some street kids and almost killed one and that one particular elder witnessed the whole thing. They now would apprehend the youth and the father could come to his court case to see it happen.

Xing Deng's face contorted in various ways while the Zhang clan member explained what they were doing. He still thought this was some kind of joke and that the Zhang Clan was just doing it as a sort of scare tactic. Though they could be serious as well, he couldn't take that option off the table just yet.

'Who is this witness... does that mean if the witness is gone then my son walks free?'

The man had a particular way of thinking, he didn't even think about bribing the so-called witness he instantly went with getting rid of him. This was one of the things these new policemen weren't thinking about, witness protection. They should have probably taken the man in and given him some bodyguards, or just kept them at their police station that was well protected. They also thought that even with the missing witness they could just force the reported criminal to say the truth with their formation.

\”So... you want my son... when will this so-called 'trial' be held?\”

The Patriarch in the room leaned back, the gears in his head turning already as he gathered more information about the police procedures.

\”After we apprehend the suspect, he will get a court date... shouldn't take longer than a week...maybe two...\”

They already had many cases, lagging behind slightly. There were far more criminals in this city than expected and the roundabout way of dealing with them was causing the police force a headache. Would be a lot faster if they could just trash every criminal, then throw them outside the city or something.

\”So, you're not willing to just trade... your Patriarch has a strange way of doing things...\”

He said without trying to seem too disrespectful, everyone knew that you couldn't be impolite towards the clan leaders or against people stronger than them. He would relent, for now, he wasn't stupid he knew if he denied them they would just bring more people next time and if he slaughtered them right here their clan might be the one being extinguished yet, he just didn't have enough strength to go against them just yet.

\”Fine... you can take him, but I want to speak to Senior Zhang Zhi, maybe we can work something out.\”

He already knew who the stationed captain in this city was, he didn't think this family would be so unreasonable. They were losing out on a lot of spirit stones, the just needed to ask for some protection money the old fashioned way. But now they were trying to imprison his son, he still believed that this was some kind of scare tactic to just milk his clan for more money. If not, he would be making arrangements for this so-called 'witness' to disappear. From what they explained, this witness was a key figure to getting his son out of this predicament.

\”Call Shie over and escort him to this so-called police station.\”

He begrudgingly gave the order out, he hoped that spirit stones could make the Zhang Clan give him some face even if the verdict was not in his favor. But while the policemen were leaving with their captive along with the Xing clan escort, the moved one of his hands up which was a signal for a shadowy person to appear.